Attached Quotes

“Unfortunately, just as the importance of the parent-child bond was disregarded in the past, today the significance of adult attachment goes unappreciated. Among adults, the prevailing notion is still that too much dependence in a relationship is a bad thing.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“We can honestly say that everyone we've known who has used effective communication has been grateful for it in the long run. Often, effective communication brings about huge relief by showing you just how strongly your partner feels about you -- and by strengthening the bond between you two. And even though in some instances the response may not be what you hoped for and you'll be convinced that you've ruined everything -- if only you had said or done something else, he would surely have come around -- we've never heard anyone say in retrospect that they regretted raising an important issue in a dating or relationship setting. In fact, they overwhelmingly express gratitude that effective communication got them that one step closer to their long-term goal of either finding the right person or strengthening their existing bond.”
― Amir Levine & Rachel S.F. Heller, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“A secure base is a prerequisite for a child’s ability to explore, develop, and learn.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“If you're avoidant, you connect with romantic partners but always maintain some mental distance and an escape route.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Attachment research shows that people tend to become more secure when they are in a relationship with someone secure.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Also, people with different attachment styles tend to explain why they are still alone in a different manner: People who are anxious often feel that there is something wrong with them; secures will have a more realistic view of things, and avoidants often sound like Paul—they attribute their single status to external circumstances, such as not having met the right girl.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Attachment principles teach us that most people are only as needy as their unmet needs.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Devaluing your partner when things become too close is very typical of people with an avoidant attachment style and is used as a way to create emotional distance.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“With avoidants, everyday interactions and conversations, whether they’re about which channel to watch on TV or how to raise the kids, are actually negotiations for space and independence. You often wind up complying with their wishes—because otherwise they will withdraw. Research shows that avoidants hardly ever date one another. They simply lack the glue that keeps things together.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“reexamine your recollections of past relationship experiences from a fresh new perspective. Viewing them through an attachment lens will allow you to change some unhelpful beliefs that rely on those particular memories, and by so doing reshape your working model into a more secure one.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“True, in modern society, we are not hunted by predators as our ancestors were, but in evolutionary terms we’re only a fraction of a second away from the old scheme of things. Our emotional brain was handed down to us by Homo sapiens who lived in a completely different era, and it is their lifestyle and the dangers they encountered that our emotions were designed to address. Our feelings and behaviors in relationships today are not very different from those of our early ancestors.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“being your authentic self, which has been found to contribute to our general feelings of happiness and fulfillment, and being happy and fulfilled is probably one of the most attractive traits you can offer a partner.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“True love, in the evolutionary sense, means peace of mind.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Not only do they influence how we feel about ourselves but also the degree to which we believe in ourselves and whether we will attempt to achieve our hopes and dreams.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Your attachment needs are legitimate.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: Identify your attachment style and find your perfect match

“The ideal relationship is one between two self-sufficient people who unite in a mature, respectful way while maintaining clear boundaries.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“If you’re avoidant, you need to be able to maintain some distance, either emotional or physical, from your partner and preserve a large degree of separateness. In order to be happy in a relationship, we need to find a way to communicate our attachment needs clearly.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“If you are avoidant—the surefire sign that you need to use effective communication is when you feel an irrepressible need to bolt. Use effective communication to explain to your partner that you need some space and that you’d like to find a way of doing so that is acceptable to him or her. Suggest a few alternatives, making sure that the other person’s needs are taken care of. By doing so, you’re more likely to get the breathing space you need.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“If you are avoidant, the first step, therefore, is to acknowledge your need for space—whether emotional or physical—when things get too close, and then learn how to communicate that need. Explain to your partner in advance that you need some time alone when you feel things getting too mushy and that it’s not a problem with him or her but rather your own need in any relationship (this bit is important!). This should quell their worries and somewhat calm their attachment system. They are then less likely to intensify their efforts to draw closer to you.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“A final word for you—the anxious reader. There is no one for whom attachment theory has more to offer than men and women with an anxious attachment style. Although you suffer the consequences of a bad match and an activated attachment system more intensely, you also stand to gain the most from understanding how the attachment system works, which relationships have the capacity to make you happy, and which situations can make you a nervous wreck. We have witnessed people who have managed to walk away from loneliness to find the companionship they longed for, using the principles outlined in this chapter. We’ve also witnessed people who have been in long-term relationships that brought out the worst in them, but understanding and utilizing attachment principles marked the beginning of a new phase of their relationship—a more secure phase.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Your partner/date has an anxious attachment style. Someone with an anxious attachment style craves intimacy but is also very sensitive to even the smallest of perceived threats to this closeness. Sometimes they’ll interpret your unconscious actions as a threat to the relationship. When this happens, they become flooded with apprehension, but they lack the skills to communicate their distress to you effectively. Instead, they resort to a lot of acting out and drama. This can create a vicious cycle as they become even more sensitive to slights and their distress is compounded. This does sound daunting, but before you call it quits, it is important to know that if you’re sensitive and nurturing enough to calm their fears—which is very doable—you will win a greatly loving and devoted partner. Once you are receptive to their basic needs for warmth and security, their sensitivity can become an asset; they’ll be very much in tune with your wants and will be helpful and dedicated. What’s more, they will also gradually learn how to communicate their fears and emotions better and you will need to second-guess them less and less.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Anxious: You love to be very close to your romantic partners and have the capacity for great intimacy. You often fear, however, that your partner does not wish to be as close as you would like him/her to be. Relationships tend to consume a large part of your emotional energy. You tend to be very sensitive to small fluctuations in your partner’s moods and actions, and although your senses are often accurate, you take your partner’s behaviors too personally. You experience a lot of negative emotions within the relationship and get easily upset. As a result, you tend to act out and say things you later regret. If the other person provides a lot of security and reassurance, however, you are able to shed much of your preoccupation and feel contented. Secure: Being warm and loving in a relationship comes naturally to you. You enjoy being intimate without becoming overly worried about your relationships. You take things in stride when it comes to romance and don’t get easily upset over relationship matters. You effectively communicate your needs and feelings to your partner and are strong at reading your partner’s emotional cues and responding to them. You share your successes and problems with your mate, and are able to be there for him or her in times of need. Avoidant: It is very important for you to maintain your independence and self-sufficiency and you often prefer autonomy to intimate relationships. Even though you do want to be close to others, you feel uncomfortable with too much closeness and tend to keep your partner at arm’s length. You don’t spend much time worrying about your romantic relationships or about being rejected. You tend not to open up to your partners and they often complain that you are emotionally distant. In relationships, you are often on high alert for any signs of control or impingement on your territory by your partner.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“if her partner treats her disrespectfully, it’s indicative of his inability to be responsive in a relationship, and not of her own worth. She”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“you—given your anxious attachment style—have certain clear needs in a relationship. If those needs are not met, you cannot be truly happy.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“A single fight is not a relationship breaker. Express your fears! Don’t let them dictate your actions. If you’re afraid that s/he wants to reject you, say so. Don’t assume you are to blame for your partner’s bad mood. It is most likely not because of you. Trust that your partner will be caring and responsive and go ahead and express your needs. Don’t expect your partner to know what you’re thinking. If you haven’t told him/her what’s on your mind, s/he doesn’t know!”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Only because they’re both willing to stay and deal with the issue do they find a resolution that they can both live with and in the process learn to be more in tune to each other’s needs.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Five Secure Principles for Resolving Conflict Show basic concern for the other person’s well-being. Maintain focus on the problem at hand. Refrain from generalizing the conflict. Be willing to engage. Effectively communicate feelings and needs.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“This is an important lesson for someone with an anxious attachment style: If you just wait a little longer before reacting and jumping to conclusions, you will have an uncanny ability to decipher the world around you and use it to your advantage. But shoot from the hip, and you’re all over the place making misjudgments and hurting yourself.”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“Numerous studies show that once we become attached to someone, the two of us form one physiological unit. Our partner regulates our blood pressure, our heart rate, our breathing, and the levels of hormones in our blood. We are no longer separate entities. p26”
― Amir Levine, Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love

“hesitation they lost their lead. Adult attachment theory teaches us that Karen’s basic assumption, that she can and should control her emotional needs and soothe herself in the face of stress, is simply wrong. She assumed the problem was that she is too needy. Research findings support the exact opposite. Getting attached means that our brain becomes wired to seek the support of our partner by ensuring the partner’s psychological and physical proximity. If our partner fails to reassure us, we are programmed to continue our attempts to achieve closeness until the partner does. If Karen and Tim understood this, she would not feel ashamed of needing to hold his hand during the stress of a nationally televised race. For his part, Tim would have known that the simple gesture of holding Karen’s hand could give them the extra edge they needed to win. Indeed, if he knew that by responding to her need early on, he would have had to devote less time to “putting out fires” caused by her compounded distress later—he might have been inclined to hold her hand when he noticed that she was starting to get anxious, instead of waiting until she demanded it. What’s more, if Tim was able to accept Karen’s support more readily, he would probably have bungee jumped sooner. Attachment principles teach us that most”
― Amir Levine, Attached: Are you Anxious, Avoidant or Secure? How the science of adult attachment can help you find – and keep – love